Marine Corps War Memorial
Six bronze Marines — each larger than life — freeze the moment a second, bigger flag went up on Iwo Jima, because the first one was too small to see across the battlefield.
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Sculptor Felix de Weldon built his first maquette in a single weekend after seeing Joe Rosenthal's 1945 photograph, then spent years casting the final colossal group. Dedicated in 1954, it honors every Marine killed in service since 1775 — the flag-raising is the image, but the scope is 180 years of dead.
What to look for
- The six individually named figures — identifications were revised in 1947, 2016, and 2019, so the names on the base reflect corrections made decades after the war
- The Netherlands Carillon, a separate monument standing just steps away in the same park
- The Ord-Weitzel Gate to Arlington National Cemetery visible from the memorial — the site sits at the edge of the cemetery grounds
Free, open year-round; located in Arlington Ridge Park off the George Washington Memorial Parkway in Arlington, Virginia, not inside Washington D.C. itself.
Marine Corps War Memorial is one of 37 sights worth the detour in Washington, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Washington pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Washington
- White HouseBritish forces torched it in 1814. It has been the U.S. president's home and office ever since.
- The PentagonDesigned and built in 16 months during World War II — 17.5 miles of corridors, a five-acre central courtyard, and a 9/11 memorial at the exact point of impact.
- United States CapitolEvery street address in Washington DC radiates outward from this building — it is literally the zero point of the city.
- Washington MonumentThe faint color seam partway up the shaft marks where construction stopped for 23 years.
- Smithsonian InstitutionBritish scientist James Smithson left a bequest that became 157 million objects, 21 museums, and a zoo — almost all free to walk into.
- Arlington National CemeteryThe ground holding 400,000 graves was seized from Robert E. Lee's own family over an unpaid tax bill in 1864.